


find your freedom

by magicites



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Mentions of Dorothea/Byleth, Multi, One-sided Edelgard/Byleth and Felix/Dimitri, Pining, Resolved Sexual Tension, Things aren't that happy here! Huh, and that's just how it fuckin be, sometimes you turn your back on your homeland and every ideal you've ever had for a hot girl, spoilers through the end of Crimson Flower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21788887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: “I refuse to be like every other idiot who has ever bore the Fraldarius name," Felix says. "Chasing after the boar and his kin like stray puppies. This is the path I’ve chosen, following someone who understands what it means to carve out a future for yourself.”Sylvain and Ingrid exchange looks. That’s why they’re both here as well, isn’t it? Seeing the Professor defy the Church of Seiros to side with her student sparked something within everyone there. She chose Edelgard, defying everything that their lives have been built upon for the sake of a brighter tomorrow.How could Ingrid ever turn away from something so impossibly beautiful?-Ingrid, Felix, and Sylvain choose Edelgard's side in the war. Mostly, they choose Edelgard.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 11
Kudos: 56





	find your freedom

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like i should defend myself for this, but at the end of the day, i can't. there is no defense. sometimes you just really want your faves and also sylvain to all kiss each other, and sometimes you think betraying everything you once stood for is actually a pretty sexy thing to do. 
> 
> i like NEVER write nsfw but i went and wrote nsfw here so uh. that sure is a thing? this is also such a rarepair that i basically made up myself so im taking solace in the fact that pretty much no one but my 3 friends who have been asking me when i was gonna post this are gonna read it. at least there's that.

Ingrid notices Edelgard von Hresvelg on the first day at the Officer’s Academy, mere hours after arriving. It isn’t that Ingrid seeks her out. The lingering curiosity that prods at her to find out what the Adrestrian Princess is like burns out like an old ember when weighed against the desire to remain with her childhood friends. 

What draws her eye to Edelgard is Dimitri’s, glued to her as she enters the meeting hall.

She sits at the very front of the hall, on the opposite side of Ingrid’s new class - the Blue Lions, she believes they’re called? She can’t remember what the other classes are titled, just that one consists of people hailing from the Empire and the other from the Alliance.

“Do you know her, Your Highness?” Ingrid asks.

Dimitri seems to return to his senses. He glances over at Ingrid, but once more he lets his eyes drift back to the girl with snow-white hair and a stiffness in her spine that speaks of the highest caliber of nobility. “There’s no mistaking it,” he mutters, though if Ingrid is intended to hear that, she isn’t certain. “That’s El- I mean, Edelgard, my apologies. Heir apparent to the Adrestian Empire.”

Ingrid nods, the pieces falling in place. “No wonder you know of her. You’re very politically astute, Your Highness.”

“The boar couldn’t politicize his way out of a paper sack,” Felix grumbles from Ingrid’s other side. Sylvain laughs at the comment as Dimitri trains his expression into something stony and unreadable.

Ingrid chances another glance at Edelgard as she chats with a black-haired student. Her back is turned to Ingrid, but the other student catches her watching. He looks at her, his dagger-sharp gaze dragging against her skin.

Ingrid shudders, and looks instead down at her hands, feeling as if she’s been convicted of a crime. 

* * *

Edelgard comes into the Academy with no expectations when it comes to gaining allies. The only person she can trust to follow her through the gates of heresy is Hubert, sworn to her side the way he’s been for the majority of their lives. Not even her fellow Black Eagles can be trusted. She can present her vision to them, but the last thing she expects is for them to catch the fire that lights her cause. 

Except even that is too dangerous, at least for now. Even as she turns Linhardt and Caspar’s fathers to her cause, she does not expect their sons to follow.

She doesn’t even expect anyone outside the Empire to join her house, but those expectations are quickly usurped. The Professor is so much more charismatic than her neutral expression and tendency to fish for hours on end may suggest. She draws people to her side the way Edelgard only wishes she could.

Against her better instincts, Edelgard finds herself wishing she could follow the Professor without question as well. In a better world, perhaps she could have.

In the world she’s determined to create, perhaps someone else can.

Ingrid is the first recruit the Professor brings into the Black Eagles. She looks around their classroom with wide-eyes and a bright smile. Edelgard stays off to the side and watches, wondering what exactly convinced Ingrid to leave her childhood friends behind to spend her class days with a bunch of strangers.

Until Dorothea bursts into their classroom with a grand gesture and wraps Ingrid into a tight hug. “My Ingrid is here! Everyone, please come say hello to our newest classmate,” she says, standing on her tiptoes so she can better tuck Ingrid under her chin.

“Dorothea, really, this isn’t necessary-” Ingrid starts, but Dorothea cuts her off with a cheerful giggle and a wave to the others. She holds Ingrid close, like she’s something precious, and Edelgard feels something unpleasant twist in her chest at the sight.

She has not been held like that in years, not since before the temple of her body was desecrated. The boy in the Kingdom, the one that felt like family, had once held her close. Those Who Slither In the Dark took his memory from her with their experiments, his face and voice and body and _name_ , just as they stole her family from her. The one thing they were unable to steal was the feeling of safety he gave her. 

She sees that now, in the way Dorothea cherishes Ingrid. She sees something a little different - something more charged, something that walks a distinct line of tension - when Felix and Sylvain join two months later. Felix barges in demanding that he cares about nothing save for the taste of battle, and the clash of his blade against an opponent as worthy as the Professor. 

Sylvain claims he’s here because the Black Eagles are, as a whole, cuter than the Blue Lions. The Professor included. 

Yet for all their claims, she sees the way those two draw close to Ingrid. She sees the lines of care, etched in their shared history, that blooms between the three when they’re together. 

It makes her wish for something similar, to claim as her own.

* * *

If there’s one thing Dorothea loves, it’s criticizing the nobility. She used to hold her tongue around Edelgard, careful not to upset the most powerful noble she knew, but all it took for her previous reservations to come crashing down was Edelgard’s declaration that many nobles are useless.

Which many are. 

“So many nobles are obsessed with Crests. Overhearing noble lords after I’d perform at the opera bragging about which of their children had Crests was awful. There was once an awful man who came to watch my performance, but the director forced me to have dinner with him. I made him pay for our dinner, of course, but he treated me like I needed to worship the ground he walked on because he had a major Crest!” Dorothea shakes her head. “If only that major Crest of his could have improved his personality. Oh well.”

Stories like these set Edelgard on edge. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Dorothea. I’ll admit that Crests are certainly useful when it comes to battle, but on matters of politics? Negotiation? Making sure that an entire country has enough food to go around? Crests aren’t helpful.”

“They’re just another excuse nobles use to lord their status over us commoners.”

“That’s true, but…” Edelgard feels a shudder go down her spine at the memory of all she’s faced. There are times when she can still feel those chains wrapped around her wrists, phantom steel sinking ice into her bones. The dying screams of her siblings still haunt her nightmares.

And for what? To make Edelgard a better heir to the throne - one that no one expects to live past the age of forty? The cost was too high. 

“People don’t just justify discrimination based on their Crests,” Edelgard says softly. She’d normally reserve these sorts of criticisms for complete privacy, but save for the two of them, the Black Eagle’s classroom is empty. It’ll be fine. “People murder, kidnap, and torture innocent people for the sake of Crests. Countless lives have been ruined in pursuit of the status Crests bring.”

“It isn’t right,” Dorothea says.

Edelgard can see a border she shouldn’t cross. To pledge anything further is too dangerously close to revealing her true goals. It may be too much of a risk, even to someone as sympathetic to this particular grievance as Dorothea.

But Edelgard is so tired of having no one to talk to about this, so she lets a little slip. After all, she can easily justify her words should the need ever arise. “I swear I’ll change it. As Emperor, I’ll build a world where no one has to suffer anymore for the sake of Crests.”

Dorothea offers her the sweetest smile. “That’s a world I’d love to live in, Edie.” Her smile turns a degree colder as her eyes flick to behind Edelgard. “Go ogle someone else, Sylvain! We’re busy!” she calls out. 

Edelgard’s blood turns to ice within her veins. Yet, when she turns around, she finds Sylvain looking at her as if she’s Sothis stepped down from the heavens herself.

Edelgard can’t explain the feeling it gives her in the moment, just that it coils deep and warm within her and stays for hours after.

* * *

What Ingrid notices about Edelgard, in the moments after she removes her mask and reveals herself as the Flame Emperor, is that this persona is taller than Edelgard truly is. She shouldn’t be as tall as Ingrid, and yet she is. She looks down at the Flame Emperor’s boots. Surely enough, she can tell the distinct edge at the bottom that speak to a platform sole. 

Ingrid doesn’t understand why that, of all the things she could fixate on, is what feels important to her. If anything, it should be the least important. Especially after Rhea commands the Professor to kill Edelgard, and the Professor refuses. 

The next thing Ingrid knows, her entire identity has changed. No longer is she a hopeful knight to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, sworn to King Dimitri, the Kryphon to his Loog.

Now she is simply a traitor. One with the broken Shield of Faerghus and Margrave Gautier’s disgrace of a son at her side, but a traitor all the same.

In their makeshift camp, the one full of their shocked classmates milling about like possessed statues, Ingrid crawls out of her tent in the dead of night. Edelgard, Hubert, and the Professor are locked away in Edelgard’s tent, planning their march on Garreg Mach at the end of the moon. Ingrid’s thankful for that particular outcome, as it lets her walk through camp without having to worry about being asked where she’s going.

The chill here is slight, just enough for Ingrid to survive the outdoors with nothing more than the blanket she stripped from her bed in the academy wrapped around her shoulders. She looks around at the motley of tents scattered across the camp like embers of a flame ready to blaze bright. Some tents are aglow with candlelight, the two people forced to share every tent (as there aren’t enough to go around, not when Edelgard expected to gain two allies and instead gained over a dozen) inevitably awake to discuss their uncertain future.

She finds the one she’s looking for at the edge of camp. She ducks in without making herself announced. Why do so, when Felix and Sylvain look at her like they expected her to be here five minutes earlier?

The three sit in a small triangle, gathered around a small bunch of candles that Ingrid recognizes from Sylvain’s room. He once told her, with an awful grin, that he liked burning these candles whenever someone came to spend the night with him, because there was nothing more seductive than stripping someone by gentle candlelight. She had left immediately, awful thoughts filling her mind so quickly that she couldn’t push them down.

They’re in similar states to when she saw them earlier that day: Sylvain with his pinched grin, Felix with his blazing eyes. She’s the somber resolve to their energy, balancing out the two of them in something that they can pretend is equilibrium.

“We march three days from now,” Felix says in lieu of a greeting. “The sparring gear here may be garbage, but that better have not stopped either of you from training.”

“Three days until my dad disowns me,” Sylvain says with a chuckle. “Hey Ingrid, you don’t really think Count Galatea is going to listen to you, right?”

He knows about her plan: to fly to her parent’s lands after they (hopefully) take Garreg Mach, where she’ll desperately convince her father not to spend the last of their house’s supplies aiding Dimitri. Sylvain plans on coming with her, even. 

“I have to try, Sylvain,” Ingrid says. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I don’t.”

“No point worrying about it if you don’t even survive the first battle of the war, right?” Sylvain asks. 

Felix whips on him with all the ferocity of a feral wolf. His hands bury themselves into Sylvain’s collar and pull him so close that their noses almost touch. “Don’t you _dare_ say something that stupid again. You’re not dying out there. I won’t let you.”

“What, so you won’t have to die with me?” The words set off something in Felix, something furious and heated. It takes Ingrid a few moments to understand what exactly Sylvain is referring to. 

That’s right. The promise Sylvain and Felix made as children to die together. They acted it out in the silliest ways. When they would play knights and maidens, when Sylvain was the maiden, Ingrid and Dimitri the knights, and Felix the dragon, Sylvain would always spear himself on Ingrid’s fake sword whenever Dimitri delivered the finishing blow to Felix’s fearsome dragon. Ingrid argued that Sylvain’s death completely defeated the purpose of the game, but Sylvain couldn’t stand to see Felix cry, even when Sylvain’s death was nothing but make-believe.

Now Sylvain’s baseless comments have a sobering undercurrent to them. Though Felix won’t let himself cry anymore, he still takes that promise seriously. 

“So I won’t have to pick your corpse off the battlefield when I could be putting my blade to better use,” Felix hisses against his mouth. There’s a brief moment when they both realize how close they are before Felix wrenches himself away to grab at Ingrid’s arm. “The same goes for you. If you let an archer catch you off-guard, I’ll throw Edelgard herself off her wyvern just so I can catch you mid-air and kill you twice for being idiotic.”

Ingrid can’t help but smile. Despite his acidic words, Felix cares for them in his own way. He’s always been better at expressing his feelings through actions.

She thinks briefly of Glenn. He was just as sharp-tongued as Felix, but where Felix has built up walls to keep others out, Glenn was never afraid of letting his feelings be known. Sharp and strong, virtuous yet acerbic, Glenn was unlike anyone else Ingrid had ever met. She still misses him, some days.

She wonders what Glenn would think of her now, turning her lance on the boy he died to protect. Would this have been enough to make him stop loving her?

She’ll never know. All she has now is the boy who, to this day, still prepares for a battle with his ghost that’ll never come.

“You have my word, Felix,” Ingrid says. “I’ll stay away from the archers.”

He lets go of her. “Good. Sylvain, you handle the archers. Ingrid will handle the mages. I’ll handle everyone else.”

Ingrid and Sylvain both nod and for a moment, something like peace settles over them. Before, of course, Felix decides to ruin it. “The boar might be there.”

“He’ll be mad,” Sylvain says. “He’ll go for Edelgard first. And if he can’t find her…”

Ingrid shudders at what Sylvain tries to leave unsaid. “He’ll come for us.”

“He’s foolish,” Felix says. “I refuse to be like every other idiot who has ever bore the Fraldarius name. Chasing after the boar and his kin like stray puppies. This is the path I’ve chosen, following someone who understands what it means to carve out a future for yourself.”

Sylvain and Ingrid exchange looks. That’s why they’re both here as well, isn’t it? Seeing the Professor defy the Church of Seiros to side with her student sparked something within everyone there. She chose Edelgard, defying everything that their lives have been built upon for the sake of a brighter tomorrow. 

How could Ingrid ever turn away from something so impossibly beautiful? 

At least for the three of them, it took little prodding for them to catch Edelgard’s vision and hold it close. For Sylvain, a world without Crests, where a family can never be broken apart the way his was. For Ingrid, a future where she can be the knight she’s dreamed of, and not shackled to the expectation of marriage and a family that she’s never wanted for herself. For Felix, freedom from the destiny, however noble it may have been, that led his brother to death and will inevitably lead his father to the same grisly fate.

“I wish my body wasn’t so calm,” Sylvain says. “I’m terrified. I wish my hands were shaking or- or _something._ Something to show that I actually cared about what’ll happen to us.” Sylvain lapses into a brief silence before giving Ingrid a curious look. “Do you really think we’ll survive this?”

As much as she wants to say yes, she knows she can’t. “I… I want to believe.”

And once more Felix gets into Sylvain’s face. Before Felix can hiss whatever insult he had prepared, Sylvain tilts his head and lets their lips connect. Felix freezes and Ingrid jolts in response, suddenly feeling like she intruded on something she shouldn’t be here for.

Until Sylvain leaves a dazed Felix behind and captures Ingrid’s lips in his own. It’s her first kiss, some part of her realizes. His lips are soft and gentle against her own, never pushing more than she’s willing to take. Before she knows what she’s doing, she’s kissing back. He lingers against her mouth for a few moments to share her breaths before pulling back.

“Sorry. I just- yeah. I wanted to try that at least once.” _Before I die_ , her mind supplies. He’s still afraid.

Ingrid used to try to suppress her feelings. Crushes, even when presented to her, she never bothered to follow. She always figured that she should dedicate herself to whatever husband she’d eventually be promised to. As a child, that was Glenn, daydreaming of the time when she’d be old enough for him to court her properly. He never kissed her anywhere but her forehead before he died, promising that he’d give her a real kiss the day his courting began. He’d make it worth her wait.

And yet Sylvain took it in a minuscule tent the eve before the war against her homeland. 

Strangely enough, it feels like what she needs to finally accept that the future her father wanted of her will never come to pass. 

As Sylvain pulls back, Ingrid hauls Felix forward and kisses him as well. They’re both marred by inexperience, but Felix is all fire and fight, and she is more than willing to keep up with him.

She does not return to her tent that night. 

Dorothea eyes her with a smile and a wink as they get their breakfast rations the next morning. 

* * *

Ingrid’s eyes glue themselves to Edelgard of their own accord these days. She is al stalwart as her axe in battle, always traversing military camps and palace halls both with an air of absolute authority.

It feels like a far cry from the Edelgard of her academy days. She has always been a fearless commander and a fearless fighter on the battlefield, but the classroom brought out a tenderness in her that Ingrid wonders may have become another victim of the war. 

The days turn to months, which slowly creep into years. Ingrid spends her battles following the same formation that she stormed Garreg Mach with: she handles the mages, Sylvain handles the archers, and Felix tries to handle everyone else - only for Ingrid and Sylvain to swoop in and help him with particularly tough enemies.

They function as a unit, night-time spars morphing seamlessly to day-time battles. They clean the blood off each other’s weapons, clothes, faces. They share the same bed, but they become brittle all the same. For all Sylvain finally learns to hold his tongue when it comes to a pretty face, the jokes that slip out instead show only a flash of darkness she’s certain settled deep in his chest long ago. Felix, for all his single-mindedness, looks at every Faerghus banner they come across with deep sorrow.

And Ingrid wonders if the dream she once held, of being a knight dedicated to a kind and just king, is as much of a silly fantasy as her father has always thought it to be. It’s hard to find a reason to fight on some days, but Felix and Sylvain help, in how their brokenness compliments one another.

For a while, that’s all she does: fight to live, and live to fight. The days are swallowed by the endless cycle of war. The Emperor she fights for becomes untouchable. The closest thing that makes her human come in the days she disappears, scouring all of Fódlan for any hint of the Professor that inspired them all.

Until the day Ingrid hears Edelgard laugh, free and happy. Ingrid just meant to come to the throne room to give a report on the small battle she, Felix, and Sylvain won over Church soldiers on the eastern edge of Empire. Yet she hears the laughter and freezes in place.

Another sound, one much more familiar, joins it: Dorothea’s singing. It takes her a moment to figure out the topic of the song - opera lyrics made on the spot about Edelgard, praising her beauty and her command. The lyrics are so over-the-top that it takes all of Ingrid’s self control not to laugh as well.

Instead she hovers in the doorway, taking the scene in.

Edelgard finally calms down and wipes a few stray tears from her eyes. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Dorothea.”

“And I don’t know where I’d be without you, Edie.”

She sees the fondness in their smiles, of a friendship born from years of struggling together. A mission born from a shared dream.

A kindness. 

She realizes something in that moment. She doesn’t need to dedicate herself to a king.

The Emperor she wishes to dedicate herself to has been in front of her all this time.

* * *

The Professor disappears, and all the hope Edelgard once felt of being something more than a monster disappears in front of her eyes. She may be the most hated person in all of Fódlan now, but she is simply receiving what she knew she would all along. Whether she is history’s villain or hero doesn’t matter. What matters is that she has tried her hardest to shape this broken world into a better one. 

A world that won’t slaughter her family. One that won’t disparage people based on their ancestry. One where her friends will receive all they deserve based not on birth, but on the merit she knows is brought out of them each and every day. 

Hubert’s appearance in the doorway draws her out of her thoughts. ”Your Majesty, one of the Black Eagle Strike Force has requested to see you.”

That attracts Edelgard’s attention. In the three years since the war’s start, the Black Eagle Strike Force have been the only thing in Edelgard’s life that’s kept her from fully losing herself. They bring some spark of light back into her life. They remind her of who she fights for now - not just the ones she lost, but the ones that remain. “Of course. Send them in.”

She racks her mind for who within the Strike Force is currently in Enbarr and not on a mission. Perhaps Petra wishes to lift her mood with smoked rabbit meat from the last hunt she went on to clear her mind. Or worse, perhaps Dorothea will saunter in here with another opera she’s written about Edelgard to distract herself from the reason why she’s forgone light-colored clothing in favor of only the deepest reds and most untouchable blacks. Maybe it is Ferdinand, here to advise her on a matter she hasn’t thought about.

She doesn’t expect Ingrid to enter through the double doors. She looks sheepish as she enters, unable to meet Edelgard’s eyes with her usual confidence.

Even after all this time, Edelgard does not know Ingrid as well as she does the others. It’s a by-product of her not being part of the Black Eagles from the outset. Out of all the non-Adrestians that joined the Strike Force, she’s only formed a close bond with Lysithea, born from the traumas they share.

That, and Ingrid tends to linger around the same few people: she lets Dorothea pull her into all sorts of schemes that Edelgard is certain she’d never do alone; she pulls Bernadetta out of her room to train almost every day they’re not pulled to a different mission; she tends to the horses with Marianne. Most of all, she spends time with Felix and Sylvain, sparring against the former and saving the latter from his most destructive impulses.

Ingrid comes to a stop a few feet away from Edelgard and bows deeply, her long braid flopping over her shoulder from the movement. “Lady Edelgard,” Ingrid greets, as Edelgard has forbade every member of the Strike Force from calling her by anything other than her name (and of course, only Hubert refuses to listen). “Good afternoon.”

“Hello, Ingrid. Hubert said you wished to speak with me?”

“Ah, yes…” Ingrid straightens up. If Edelgard isn’t mistaken, a light blush comes to her face. She takes a deep breath, and what comes out next escapes in what is clearly a rehearsed speech. “Lady Edelgard, I’ve fought alongside you on the battlefield countless times now. You’re just as adept at combat as you are at commanding an army. You do not need a protector, and yet…” Ingrid’s eyes flutter open. She can’t make direct eye-contact with Edelgard, instead choosing to stare at one of her cheeks. 

“I’ve wanted nothing more than to be a knight, and to protect and serve at the side of a liege who I believe in with all my heart. You are that liege, Lady Edelgard. Please, let me be your knight.”

Edelgard is taken aback. She’s always known Ingrid values knighthood - she remembers all the times she’d go into the library as a student, only to find Ingrid there, excitedly discussing tales of knighthood with Ashe. It isn’t a surprise to hear Ingrid values that. But to swear her _life_ to _Edelgard…_ it feels hard to believe.

Only Hubert has ever gone that far to declare such a thing, though he is simply the latest in a line of fealty that stretches back almost as far as the Empire’s history goes. By swearing fealty to Edelgard, Hubert accepted his destiny.

By swearing fealty to Edelgard, Ingrid eschews hers.

This is not a decision to be made lightly. “Are you sure you wish to do this, Ingrid? You already fight against your homeland. Soldiers I’m sure you once trained with as a girl are now enemies you have to kill before they kill you first.”

“I understand that, Lady Edelgard. I accept the risk.”

“You would forsake your family, your homeland, the king of Faerghus himself - the same man you once called your friend?”

Something dark crosses over Ingrid’s face. “I’ve come to realize something, my lady. The man I once called my friend died years ago. The Tragedy of Duscur took who he once was. I just didn’t realize it until far too late.” It sounds like something Felix would say - it probably is something Felix has said, time and time again.

Still, the mention of the Tragedy of Duscur reminds Edelgard all the same why they must fight. Every day the Slitherers remain is another day that they can enact another genocide. They must win this war quickly, so they can wage the next war that will secure Fódlan’s peace for centuries to come. 

That does not fully assuage her concerns. She needs to be certain Ingrid understands. “As it stands, when this war ends, so does my use of your skills. You’d be free to pursue whatever you wish afterwards. If you swear fealty to me and become my knight, the rest of your life is mine to have. You will take on my goals as your own. Is that truly what you desire?”

Ingrid takes to one knee, her head bowed deep in reverence. “Please. Let me serve you,” Ingrid says. “I will you in whatever ways you require of me, for as long as you wish.”

Emperors don’t traditionally have knights, just the Minister of the Imperial Household to assist them, but Edelgard has never been one to blindly follow tradition.

This is what Ingrid has dreamed of.

And Edelgard cares for her Black Eagle Strike Force, in whatever ways she can.

“Very well,” Edelgard says. “I’ll only make a formal announcement should it please you, but I’ll let you fight at my side. Cover my steps from above.”

“Yes, my liege! Of course. I will follow you wherever you go.” Ingrid says with the most dazzling smile. 

Her heart skips a beat.

She tries her best not to think of the implications.

* * *

For all surprising amount of paperwork war requires, Edelgard still makes a point to find time to hone her physical skills within the Imperial Palace’s training guards. While closed off to the public, the Black Eagle Strike Force make ample use of these grounds whenever they find themselves in Enbarr.

She thinks she’s alone in the grounds until something solid and wooden thuds unexpectedly against her back. She whips around, the gauntlets in her hands ready to knock unconscious whatever assailant dares strike her. What she sees is Felix, a wooden sword in his hand. “Emperor,” he says. “Spar with me. Let me see you fight.”

“You’ve seen me fight countless times, Felix,” Edelgard sighs, sparing a brief glance down at what he threw at her - an axe. “You often use your magic from atop Ingrid’s pegasus or Sylvain’s horse, both of which tend to trail me. Surely you know my fighting style.”

“As an ally, but not an opponent. Your strikes are strong, but your speed is laughable. Fight me up close. I want to see if I can beat the mighty emperor of Adrestia herself.” He holds his chin up high, as haughty and obsessed with fighting as ever.

Edelgard removes her gauntlets, trading them out in favor of the axe on the floor. Felix’s eyes brighten at the sight, excited energy running through him in the strangest undercurrents. 

The moment Edelgard stands up, axe in hand, Felix falls upon her. There’s a smirk on his face as his blade clashes with hers, which morphs into a huff of laughter as she shoves him backward. 

He’s the personification of the Thoron she’s seen him arc across the battlefield countless times, moving far faster than she could ever hope to. She barely has time to lift her weapon before he strikes again, aiming directly for her heart. Knowing that she won’t be able to block his strike in time, she dodges and aims a swipe for his wrist. He does _something_ with his hand that parries her strike before it can connect. 

They trade blows back and forth for what would be an eternity on the battlefield, her strength up against his speed. Felix can dodge as if he’s made of water, but Edelgard remains a wall against him. What he lacks that she has in high supply, however, is endurance. His strikes, once laced with precision, grow sloppy as a thin sheen of sweat covers his skin. His face grows red from exertion. 

His grin only grows wider.

Then Felix makes a move Edelgard doesn’t expect. He darts behind her, settling so close against her back that his breath comes out in a hot whoosh against her ear. It makes her heart rate spike and adrenaline flood her body even as she spins to his side. She just barely misses the swipe of his sword, cutting through the air so fiercely that it provides a cool balm against her own heated skin.

She stays at his side for less than a breath before spinning once more, her arm curving around his side as she comes up against his front. She stops the wave of momentum pushing her forward before she strikes and bruise him - the last thing she wants is one of her best soldiers injured from a training mishap - leaving her axe to caress his back with all the gentleness of a lover’s touch.

“I believe I win,” Edelgard says. When did her breath become so labored? When did Felix’s face become so red, his chest heaving so hard that it brushes hers with every inhale?

“You outmatched me,” Felix whispers. “You’re remarkable, Emperor.” He usually forgoes the formalities, but the way he says her title now feels like something intimate. She can’t fathom why.

“Thank you,” Edelgard says. Compliments from Felix are rare, and never given without earning them first. Felix’s eyes are sharp as he looks at her, something approaching a slight daze in them. His irises are like molten gold, though from this close, she can see faint lines of a darker amber extending out from his pupils. 

She hasn’t been this physically close to another person in so long. This thought is accompanied by a spike of sorrow and a swoop of something that burns warm and terrifyingly low in her stomach. She can feel the heat radiating off Felix’s body, separated only by the linen shirts and black pants they both wore to train in.

Part of Edelgard, the foolish part, wants to get even closer. 

The smarter part of Edelgard takes a step back, breaking whatever spell seemed to overtake them both. A scowl settles back on Felix’s face as he turns around. She doesn’t miss the way the tips of his ears go red.

Nor does she miss the distinctive bulge in his pants before he turns. She feels heat burst over her entire body, as if she’s been caught in a surprise enemy blaze. 

It’s a natural thing that happens to men, she tries to reason. Especially when adrenaline is coursing through their bodies, something that spars provide no short supply of. If the blood is already rushing, it makes sense for it to rush towards a particular spot. It doesn’t mean anything.

But the way he looked at her also felt like a fire in its own right, and Edelgard isn’t sure what exactly she wants the truth to be.

“I-I should go,” Edelgard says, hurriedly setting her axe back against the wall with the other training weapons. Felix doesn’t acknowledge her. “I have duties to attend to. Emperor business.”

That earns a huff out of Felix, barely audible as Edelgard rushes out. 

As much as Edelgard tries not to think of it, she does. Only at night does she give in to the urge, her mind replaying the sight of his pupils blown wide as her hand slips beneath her sleep clothes.

* * *

Dorothea enjoys playing with Ingrid’s hair. Ingrid doesn’t see any reason not to indulge her, at least after her duties have been fulfilled for the day and Edelgard has retired to her chambers for the night. If Dorothea truly had her way, she’d paint Ingrid’s face up like a clown’s every day, but Ingrid has to draw the line somewhere.

“Really, you’re just like Edie,” Dorothea huffs, pulling a small comb through Ingrid’s hair as she fixes up the ends. She had Felix cut most of it off with a dagger the week before, after yet another windy patrol whipped her hair out of her braid, into her face, and nearly sent her crashing into a palace spire. “Neither of you will let me put makeup on you. Even Bern lets me play with her makeup every once in a while.”

Ingrid can’t deny the surge of warmth that spirals through her at the thought of Edelgard sharing that quality with her. The more time she spends at her side, the more Ingrid comes to admire her. The cold Emperor who commands her army with an iron fist is a far cry from who Edelgard truly is: dedicated to the people she cares for, determined to make the world a better place, and the most beautiful woman Ingrid has ever met, in the most lonely way she can imagine.

These thoughts haven’t interfered with her duties, but it takes so much of her self-control not to let herself get caught up in useless daydreams.

Still, she wonders how soft Edelgard’s skin would be, were Ingrid to touch her. 

Dorothea notices Ingrid’s silence. “Thinking of Edie again, are we?” she asks with a small giggle. 

“...Yes,” Ingrid says. She’s long since learned not to hide things from Dorothea. She’s too perceptive to let anything slip by; if she fails to comment on it, it’s only because she’s too polite to point it out.

No one else, not even in the Black Eagle Strike Force, knows that she, Sylvain, and Felix dragged her mattress into Sylvain’s room ages ago, so the three of them can share the same bed at night. No one save for Dorothea.

And Ingrid’s shared these thoughts with them before, only to discover that they’ve all managed to feel a similar way once again. The reasons may differ, but the result is the same. 

“She really is something special,” Dorothea says. “I can hardly blame you for falling for her.”

Ingrid jolts. The defense comes almost reflexively. “I don’t-”

“-Don’t try that with me, Ingrid. You and I both know that’s a lie.”

Ingrid knows when she’s defeated. She curls within herself, unintentionally pulling the half-braised strands of her short hair out of Dorothea’s fingers. “You don’t think it’s improper? After all, she’s my liege. I’ve sworn my life to her. Besides, Felix and Sylvain…” She trails off, unsure of how to label whatever strange thing their friendship has bent itself into.

“Like her just as much as you do? Correct. As for that whole _improper_ business… well, isn’t that just more noble nonsense? Plenty of families across all of Fódlan are a little atypical. If you all feel the same way, then why not try something out?”

For all the points Dorothea raises, an equal number of protests come to Ingrid’s mind. “We have a war to focus on. I can’t be distracted by silly crushes, _especially_ when I already have my… well, you know.”

“We’re fighting for our lives more days than we aren’t, sure,” Dorothea admits. “But if we don’t find something to cherish, then we’ll lose ourselves long before the fighting ever ends,” Dorothea admits. Her hands find Ingrid’s own. The ring that Ingrid gave her a lifetime ago, back when they were both young and foolish, sits on her index finger. “And I love you too much to see you lose yourself. If something happens to you, I don’t want you to have any regrets, okay?”

Ingrid doesn’t know what to say to that.

Dorothea squeezes her hands with a playful wink. “And if you’re worried about Hubie, don’t. I’ll put in a good word with him for you.”

* * *

Four years into the war, and there are two eagles that stand on either side of the Adrestian Emperor’s throne. Hubert claims her right side, and Ingrid her left.

When Edelgard holds court, Hubert does most of the talking, taking care to announce the various nobles and merchants who come forth with whatever concern they may have. Once his job is done, he always retreats back to the shadows, careful never to stray too far. Ingrid, however, stays in the same stalwart position: lance standing at attention, clasped between both of her gloved hands, eyes always on whatever visitor comes to the throne room.

They don’t spend much time in Enbarr, but when they do, this is the configuration they take. 

The last audience member for the day finally leaves. The moment Hubert shuts the door behind him, Edelgard slumps in her throne with a small groan. She has no idea how her father spent most of his adult life in this uncomfortable chair. She’s only it in for a week’s worth of work at a time and already her lower back aches. 

“You seem tense, my liege,” Ingrid says. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Just a little stiff. I’m fine, really,” Edelgard says. 

Hubert crosses the audience chamber, coming to a stop in front of Edelgard. “Would you like me to fetch you some tea?”

“That would be wonderful, Hubert. Thank you.” He bows, but when he stands again, he trades a look with Ingrid that Edelgard can only decipher as some sort of plot he’s failed to include her in _again._ He leaves without another word, which is also very much in line for Hubert to do.

The door clicks shut. A few torches go out, plunging them into a dimmer light. Another trick of Hubert’s, though she can’t figure out what his plan is. 

Ingrid lets her lance rest against the closest wall before crossing in front of Edelgard. “Is something the matter, Ingrid?” Edelgard asks, her suspicion coming forth in her voice. 

Ingrid can’t meet her eye, especially not as a flush takes over her face. Her fists clench at her sides as she takes a deep breath. What she’s preparing herself for, Edelgard has no idea. 

“My liege, all I have ever dreamed of is being a knight. You gave me that, even in a land that doesn’t traditionally have them. You don’t solely fight for your future. You fight for my own too, with every breath you take. I… well. I’d like to repay you.”

Is this what she was preparing for? A speech to thank her? “You know how I already feel on this matter, Ingrid. This is the path I’ve chosen to take for a brighter future. To give me a speech now seems a little excessive.”

Ingrid’s face flushes a bright red. She bows deeply. “Forgive me, but it seems I’m circling around what I really want to say…”

“And that is?”

Ingrid takes a deep breath. “A friend recently told me that we may not live to see tomorrow. That even when the war ends, there are inevitable fights that will continue. I’ve already received one thing I want. Yet there is something else that I still haven’t gotten.”

Ah, so that is what Ingrid wants to ask for. Edelgard racks her mind, trying to figure out what she could possibly be so nervous to ask about. If it’s a pardon for her family, then Edelgard can allow that. She isn’t Rhea; she won’t strike down her enemies senselessly. Should she wish to take a leave of absence, that could easily be arranged for. 

“It seems… I’ve developed feelings for you, Lady Edelgard.”

Edelgard freezes. Out of all the things she expected Ingrid to say, that was not the one.

“And… well, forgive me for being so forward, but should your bed ever feel empty…” Ingrid’s face is bright red as she speaks, nothing more than a series of mutterings directed at her armor. 

Edelgard pictures what she insinuates for just a moment: Ingrid, nothing but a sheet covering her body, sitting up in the massive bed Edelgard has in the palace. A body to keep hers warm at night. 

But something more than that, too. A companion, a friend, a protector, a _lover._ Edelgard never thought she would be afforded one, only that her hand would be reserved for a political union. 

Maybe it’s just that Edelgard is lonely, and the distance between them feels too far. “You can come closer, Ingrid.” Slowly, Ingrid inches forward, something like hope shining in her eyes. 

Edelgard stands to meet her. She can’t help but think of Felix in the training grounds when Ingrid comes closer, just a hair’s breath away. Her eyes are the loveliest shade of green.

His were the loveliest shade of gold.

“You may kiss me, if you desire,” Edelgard says. Ingrid blinks - one, then twice, in equal amounts of shock, before hesitantly closing the distance. Her lips are warm against Edelgard’s own, if slightly chapped from all the time she spends soaring the frozen skies. She kisses roughly, with the same kind of blunt enthusiasm she takes on most tasks with.

Edelgard raises her hand to Ingrid’s cheek, the other coming to rest on her shoulder. Ingrid tilts her head and deepens the kiss, one of her own hands coming to trace along the edge of her horned crown. The other rests against her neck, fingertips leaving small fires where they brush against her skin. Ingrid’s earlier shyness has all but vanished, leaving behind a self-assured confidence that Edelgard wonders comes from experience.

Yet, she has no idea who she would be experienced with. A flick of Ingrid’s tongue does well to banish the thought, replacing it with a pressure low in her belly that part of her wishes to answer.

“Lady Edelgard? Ingrid? I have your tea,” Hubert calls from the closed door. Ingrid pulls away and licks her lips; just the sight makes another wave of warmth surge through Edelgard. Part of her wishes to send Hubert away, perhaps forever, so they can return to what they were doing previously.

But her duty calls to her, something that Ingrid wordlessly understands as she straightens herself out and stands back at her usual place by the throne. Edelgard glances again at her lips, reddened from their kiss.

“Come in,” Edelgard says. If her voice sounds breathier than it should be, then at least no one comments on it.

* * *

Sylvain visits Edelgard often. A few of those visits consist of fascinating chess games that, for all Edelgard’s tactical efforts, she can never seem to win. 

The rest of those visits consist of Sylvain doing very little other than fawning over Edelgard’s idea for a new Fódlan. No one else has read her manifesto more times than he has. At this point, he may have poured over her words more times than even she has, which is no small feat.

He catches her as she steps out of a war council. He’s in civilian clothing, a loose-fitting shirt and a pair of red trousers that fit him better than Edelgard thinks she should probably notice. He’s off-duty for the next week to recover after suffering a particularly harsh wound from an aggressive Alliance soldier during their last skirmish. Given how stressed Sylvain’s injury made Felix, she forced him to also take the week off.

Given that, it is strange to see Sylvain without Felix at his side. Sylvain himself seems not to pay any mind as he jogs over to Edelgard. “Looking radiant as ever, Your Majesty,” he says, bowing to her.

“You can spare me the formalities, Sylvain. You should know that by now.”

“Oh, I know. I just like the way the title sounds.”

“I… Um…” Edelgard clears her throat. “Very well. How are you healing?”

Rather than tell her, Sylvain elects to show her. He pulls down the neckline of his shirt, exposing the line of bandages that run around his left shoulder. “As good as I could hope.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“It’s a little tender, but it’s not bad.”

Edelgard nods. “Good. Take the time you need to rest. I’d rather you be at your full strength for the next battle.”

“Or the next ghost hunt, right?” Sylvain asks. 

Something in Edelgard’s chest constricts painfully. Sylvain is good at reconnaissance, better than someone as loud as him has any right to be. He’s who she prefers to send out on missions to search for the missing Professor. She tends to let him choose whatever team he wishes to bring along in the most sincere form of thanks she can think to offer. 

She can’t remember a single time he’s chosen anyone other than Felix and Ingrid.

“No,” Edelgard says. She tries to temper her voice, but there’s a sorrow present that Sylvain is too perceptive to ignore. “If she hasn’t turned up in the four years we’ve spent scouring Fódlan, then…”

“Hey, you don’t need to say anything else. I get it,” Sylvain says, sparing her from this pain. Concern takes over as he steps closer, his hands coming to cover her gloved ones. The touch feels like fire, and although she’s shocked at the sensation, she isn’t surprised that Sylvain refuses to treat her with the same distance that even many of the Black Eagle Strike Force do. He’s too tactile to care. “Hey, look. I didn’t mean to make you upset, okay? If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll totally go scout around wherever you want me to look.”

Edelgard shakes her head. “I’m fine, really. You don’t have to leave.”

“But I will, if you want me to. It’s not like I can do much else. All I’m good for is hounding people in taverns for information, stabbing soldiers, and laying around.”

 _Laying around._ He says that, and yet the rumors she expected to hear of him all throughout Enbarr are strangely quiet. What’s reigned in his more carnal impulses, Edelgard has no idea.

“That being said…” Sylvain leans down and does something entirely unexpected. He presses his lips against Edelgard’s gloved knuckles, like a perfect gentleman wishing to court a noble lady. There’s no wink, no grin, nothing but the utmost sincerity in his eyes. “If you ever want to feel less lonely, just let me know. I’m no Byleth, but hey, a body’s a body.”

Edelgard yanks her hand back, her face suddenly on fire. One implication - two, really - and now she’s blushing like a schoolgirl at her first ball. She is the _Emperor of the Adrestian Empire,_ and yet all it takes to unsettle her are a few lascivious remarks. 

Then she thinks back to what she shared with Ingrid, and that familiar heat roars to life within her. Sylvain is experienced; surely he could do something similar…

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Edelgard says, more shaken than she wishes she could let on. “Farewell, Sylvain.” She glances at his face once last time, her eyes magnetically drawn to his lips, slightly open as the rest of her mind struggles to catch up and properly identify his expression.

Shock, she realizes dimly. He’s shocked at what she said. She’s shocked at it too - she didn’t deny him outright, not when his hands are warm and he voiced a secret she wishes wasn’t as open as it is.

Likewise, he’s perceptive enough to catch her looking at his lips. They’re last thing she sees before she marches away, upturned in a smirk.

* * *

The war is in a deadlock, and Edelgard is desperate for something to improve the morale of her troops. Even the Black Eagle Strike Force is slipping - Petra and Bernadetta went out for what should have been a routine patrol on the border between Empire and Kingdom territory and came back enough injuries that it’s a miracle they were able to come back at all. 

The others are no better. Hubert doesn’t sleep, Ferdinand is somehow even more obnoxious than usual, and all Edelgard can think of is how the eve of what was once the Millenium Festival is fast approaching, and all they have to show for the passage of time are bitter memories.

And yet, for all Ferdinand’s constant buzzing, he’s the one to step into the war council and announce not a plan to route supplies over to Imperial troops fighting the Knights of Seiros in Alliance territory, but a plan to organize a ball.

“It is a surefire way to improve morale, which we are all in desperate need of,” Ferdinand insists. He then spends the better part of an hour laying out an incredibly long and incredibly detailed list of reasons as to why they should have a ball. Edelgard agrees, if only to get him to shut up faster.

Which is how she finds herself in her current situation: standing off to the side of the grandest ballroom the entire Imperial Palace has to offer in the strangest call back to her Academy days. Back then, it was so difficult to pull herself away from the constant stream of students asking her to dance. She was only able to after she saw Byleth pull away, her curiosity over where her professor was headed off to overpowering all her sense of decorum.

So much has changed since then. As the Imperial Princess, to dance with Edelgard was an honor.

As the Emperor, she is far too untouchable to approach. The few who don’t fear her to some degree have no interest in dancing with her - she takes Hubert, haunting the food stand like a specter, as the prime example.

She notices Ingrid approach the table. She exchanges a pleasant nod with Hubert - and oh, she’s so relieved that the two get along - before taking a chicken skewer and eating with gusto. 

She takes two more before she notices Edelgard. She grabs one more, eats the two on her way over, and offers the third to Edelgard as she comes to a stop in front of her. Edelgard takes the food with a slight nod, though she doesn’t inhale the food the way Ingrid does. Instead, she takes her time nibbling at the meat and taking in Ingrid’s outfit. Unlike Edelgard, she’s forgone the typical dress in favor of a loose-fitting mint blouse and a pair of white, tight-fitting pants cuffed off by knee-high, navy boots. She looks sharp and elegant, but not overly fanciful.

Edelgard notices the slightest hint of mascara framing her eyelashes, and a light shade of pink swiped over her lips and cheeks that Edelgard is certain she’s seen on Dorothea before. It seems Ingrid is more open to makeup than Edelgard is herself… or at least less able to refuse Dorothea. 

“Enjoying yourself, my liege?” Ingrid asks, hopeful and pleasant. 

It occurs to Edelgard that this is the first time they’ve really spoken since their kiss, something that Edelgard can’t even think without feeling a blush creeping up her neck. Ingrid has been busy assisting Felix and Sylvain with various missions, and whatever other time they have spent together has always been in the presence of another.

Here, with the loud music as Dorothea and Manuela provide from a stage they were born to command, and with everyone wrapped up in their own festivities, they’re afforded their own kind of privacy. 

“Not as much as everyone else seems to be, I’m afraid,” Edelgard says. She finishes her food. Ingrid takes the empty skewer from her and deposits it on the tray of a passing server, instead switching it with two delicate glasses of sweet wine. Edelgard nods to her in thanks and sips a bit of the liquid. It burns a little, but the sweetness helps to settle her.

“Have you danced yet?” Edelgard shakes her head and Ingrid offers her a small smile. “Would you care to dance with me? I’m afraid I’m not very good, but even a poor dancer like me might be more fun than watching everyone else go by.”

They both take another sip of their wine - Ingrid to hide her nervousness, and Edelgard to think over her answer. It _would_ be nice to dance, if only for a little bit. That, and she trusts Ingrid with her life. What’s a few clumsy steps, when all is said and done?

“I’d be happy to,” Edelgard says. Ingrid’s resulting smile is radiant as she takes Edelgard’s gloved hand in her own and leads her onto the ballroom floor. Ingrid elects to take the lead, moving her free hand to slide along Edelgard’s waist. Suddenly nervous, Edelgard places her hand on Ingrid’s shoulder.

They’ve shared more intimate touches than this, but an unspoken energy crackles in the air between them. Ingrid’s eyes are such a bright shade of green, like tufts of grass on a spring afternoon. Part of Edelgard wants to lean forward and kiss her - and perhaps she would, if only they weren’t in public.

Yet Edelgard is excellent at controlling herself, and control herself she does. She lets Ingrid lead her in a waltz. What Ingrid lacks in grace she makes up for with enthusiasm, and before long, the two are spinning along the dance floor without a care.

That is, until a hand taps her shoulder and cuts in, separating the two. Edelgard prepares to scold whoever interrupted her festivities, but the words die in her throat when she sees Sylvain smiling down at her. “Mind if we cut in?” he asks.

His hand is so warm against the thin fabric covering her waist, his other clasping her own just as Ingrid did moments ago. He spins her around once. She forgoes an immediate answer to see what happened to Ingrid, only to see her leading Felix in a dance of their own. Ingrid looks happy, smiling at the vivid blush that covers Felix’s face even as he snaps at her. 

“Not at all,” Edelgard says, realizing that she truly doesn’t. Sylvain chuckles and Edelgard moves her hand from his shoulder from his chest, trying to chase the sound. That only makes him chuckle harder, reverberations spilling out of him and into her. His other hand leaves her own to find a new home at her lower back, pulling her closer. Their steps turn into more of a sway, but he stays in time to the music, and it’s easy to lose herself in the warmth he radiates.

The song they sway to, a slow ballad about a lovelorn knight, comes to an end. Sylvain’s grip loosens on her just as the tempo changes and Manuela takes her and Dorothea’s duet for a solo for her own. Fiddles layer themselves against the background of her vocals, settling up a lively, upbeat song that seems to work the entire ballroom into a frenzy.

That’s when Sylvain steps back and Felix swoops in to take his place. Sylvain and Ingrid spin away, laughing with all the unrestrained joy of children, and Edelgard can’t deny how much more fitting such a happy sound fits for them instead of the graveness they’ve tended to conduct themselves with these past few years.

She can’t focus on them for long though, not with Felix looking down at her in such a blatant challenge. “Can you keep up, Emperor?” he asks.

Edelgard smirks. “Of course I can.” He dances like he fights: with unrelenting speed. He whirls Edelgard through the entire ballroom, spinning in endless circles that threaten to make her dizzy. Still, she refuses to fall, instead pulling Felix along in the opposite direction whenever she sees his own steps falter. He clearly relishes the push-and-pull, laughing softly whenever she manages to surprise him. 

It’s more fun than she thought she would have. She surprises herself with her own laughter.

It’s been so long since she felt this light. 

* * *

The four dance well into the night, switching partners with the same ease the moon moves across the night sky. It hangs full and bright over their heads by the time they finally leave the palace, breathless and on the edge of giddy exhaustion.

Edelgard finds Ingrid’s hand still in her own. She also finds herself unwilling to let go. For the past few hours, she hasn’t been _The Emperor._ She hasn’t had to maintain any air of elegance or command; all she’s done is dance. She feels young and free in a way she hasn’t since she was a girl.

A memory strikes her, one that feels like it truly was a lifetime before her own. A boy, with wide blue eyes that looked at her like she held every secret the world could contain, following her confident steps with his own unsteady ones…

She wonders if he’s still alive, still sane, not turned into a monster by this war.

With no reason to dwell other than to mask in melancholy, she pushes her thoughts of the past away in favor of focusing on the present. The same present that is quickly coming to an end. Ingrid has a chamber for herself in the palace just down the hall from Edelgard’s own, but Sylvain and Felix both stay with the majority of the Black Eagle Strike Force in rooms just off the palace grounds.

“It seems our time together is coming to an end,” Edelgard says. Ingrid’s hand squeezes her own as she takes a deep breath.

“It doesn’t have to,” she whispers.

Wouldn’t that be lovely if they could stay in this dream forever? “Where would we go? Even with you three at my side, Hubert and the rest of my council would be furious if I left without telling them.”

“Then we hide in plain sight,” Sylvain suggests. He leans back, arms crossed behind his head as if he runs off with the Emperor every night. Felix stands at his side, his own arms folded across his chest. He looks angry, but Edelgard has learned how to read his expressions, and this one betrays something far from true anger. 

“And where would that be?” Edelgard asks.

It’s Felix who answers. “It isn’t obvious? The one place no one would ever dare enter. Your chambers.”

The implication makes Edelgard freeze. And yet, it feels like everything has led up to this moment - the spar with Felix, Sylvain’s earlier suggestion, Ingrid’s kiss in the throne room… 

“Have you three been planning this?” Edelgard asks, her most cautious gaze falling over the three of them in turn. Ingrid still holds her hand, though she can no longer meet her eyes. A fierce blush colors her cheeks, and it’s almost as if it spreads out of her and to Sylvain and Felix.

“We miiiiight have discussed it,” Sylvain says.

“Then, are you three…?” She doesn’t need to finish her question, not when Ingrid nods sheepishly. “And Ingrid, did you tell them?”

At that, Ingrid startles. “No, no! I didn’t. I haven’t told anyone.”

“Told anyone what?” Felix demands.

Well, if they’re all laying their intentions on the table, then Edelgard sees no point in lying. She’s so tired of lies. “Ingrid kissed me before. In the throne room.”

It takes a few moments for Sylvain and Felix to understand. A laugh explodes out of Sylvain as Felix’s eyes grow wide, and Sylvain surges forward to clap Ingrid on the shoulders. “Ingrid, Ser Stick Up Her Ass, gets action before me? I’ve taught you well.”

Ingrid swipes his hand off her shoulder, but there’s a grin on her face all the same. “You actually did, Sylvain. Thank you.”

“I had no idea,” Edelgard says. She has an idea now, and a choice before her. She knows what accepting will entail - whatever the three now share possibly being split across four, if only temporarily. 

Or she could say no. She could return to her chambers, the closest place to sacred the Empire still has, and spend another night alone. No hand to hold her own, no arm around her waist, no one to take the reins of control for her if only for a moment so she can breathe.

The choice becomes obviously, frighteningly so.

“Follow me,” she says softly. 

All three look at her in awe. Sylvain is the one to break their tentative silence, to pull them out of their shock and into action. She appreciates that. “Ingrid, can you go get the thing Felix and I got you last year?”

Her eyes glitter; Edelgard has no idea why. “Of course. But first… lead the way, my liege,”

So Edelgard does. She can feel the tension as they slowly make their way deeper into the palace towards her personal chambers. It’s the same feeling she used to get whenever she stood on the massive bridge leading to Garreg Mach’s cathedral. On the edge of something much bigger than herself. 

She lets go of Ingrid’s hand lest anyone see, careful to prepare an excuse in her mind should anyone question their reason for being together so late into the night. It isn’t uncommon for her to have sporadic meetings with the Black Eagle Strike Force. All she’s doing is prepping them for an especially confidential reconnaissance mission. 

Ingrid disappears for only a few moments to retrieve something from her own room. She comes back holding a small black box. Edelgard has no idea what’s inside, but whatever it is makes Sylvain grin like a wolf and makes Felix release a shaky exhale. Edelgard chooses not to comment, instead pushing the double doors to her chambers open.

They step inside.

Ingrid quietly shuts the door behind them.

And a new sort of tension settles in the air. They look at each other, almost helpless in their shared anxiety, and Edelgard can’t help but chuckle. They’re all there for the same reason, and yet none of them can seem to make the first move.

So Edelgard does what she does best: she acts. She cups Felix’s jaw with her hands and stands on tiptoe to press their lips together. He kisses like he dances, like he fights, and it sparks a light low in Edelgard’s belly. One of his hands rests between her shoulder blades and the other comes to stop on her hip, bleeding his warmth through her dress. He runs hotter than Sylvain and Ingrid both, and for all Edelgard wants to lean forward, she also wants to press back into his hands.

She chooses instead to press up against him, and his hand grips her hip instead. He tilts his head a little further and opens his mouth slightly as he re-captures her lips. Her kisses are marred by inexperience, but she mimics his movements to the best of her ability.

Ingrid’s arms wrap around her waist, one hand coming to rest on top of Felix’s as a pair of lips trail along Edelgard’s neck. She sighs into Felix’s mouth as he greedily snatches up the sound.

Felix opens his mouth further, his tongue darting out to lap at the inside of Edelgard’s mouth. A shudder races across her entire body, making her knees weak and her insides churn pleasantly. An embarrassing sound escapes her, but she forgoes feeling embarrassed to kiss Felix in turn. He responds with something that is _definitely_ a moan.

“Sylvain?” Ingrid asks, breathing his name against Edelgard’s neck.

“I’m good watching the show,” Sylvain responds, moving past them to sit on Edelgard’s bed. 

“Layabout,” Felix mutters, pulling Edelgard so close that there isn’t any space left between them at all.

Ingrid ignores both of them as her hands start to wander, coming to rest at the front of Edelgard’s rib cage. Edelgard’s heart starts thumping for an entirely different reason, pulling her out of the pleasant heat that’s spreading through her veins. Can Ingrid feel her scars through the fabric of her dress? It’s so much thinner than anything else she normally wears. 

“Can we touch you, my liege?” Ingrid asks. Felix’s own hand trails to her lower back, waiting for permission, like a snake raring to bite. He pulls back just enough to look at her, Ingrid’s breath ghosting against Edelgard’s pulse, hammering in her neck.

She could end it here, with some kissing and cuddling. Then none of them would ever see her scars, so much more awful than whatever nicks and scratches they’ve picked up from war. 

Maybe it’s the residual feeling of the ball. Not the wine - she barely had a glass’s worth over the entire night. Her mind is clear; it’s why she’s so worried.

“It’s your choice, Edelgard,” Sylvain says.

Edelgard takes Ingrid’s hands and pulls them up higher, resting directly over her breasts. “Call me El,” she says.

They take it for the permission it is. 

Felix captures Edelgard’s lips in his once more as his hand palms her ass. She gasps into his mouth, only to gasp a second time as Ingrid’s hands squeeze her chest. 

Edelgard’s dress covers about as much skin as she could make it, the red draping high around her collarbones, flaring in at her waist, and dropping down to the floor. The sleeves are long, covering the elbow-length gloves she’s elected to wear underneath them. The only way to take it off is to unfasten the series of buttons trailing along her left side.

She wants nothing more than for one of them to rip the damn thing off her. Their hands are warm against her, but they’d blaze against her bare skin, burning away any fear she has of being seen.

Ingrid nips at her neck, teeth grazing along skin she never knew was sensitive before now. Felix pulls her flush against him, trapping Ingrid’s hands between them and making Edelgard feel the unmistakable bulge in his pants against her hip. What shocked her before only makes her want him more now.

Edelgard breaks their kiss. “The dress,” she pants. “There are buttons on the side.”

“Yes, El,” Ingrid whispers in her ear, her hands trailing fire along Edelgard’s body as they slide to her side, making her moan helplessly. Deft fingers work to unbutton her dress, but Ingrid pauses in her ministrations with a slight gasp of her own. She feels Felix’s knuckles against her back now - he’s twisted his hand around to slip between Ingrid’s legs. She keeps unbuttoning Edelgard’s dress even as her breathing grows ragged. When it’s most of the way undone, Felix slips his hand back to pull it down, leaving Edelgard in just her undergarments. 

There’s no hiding now. Her shame is almost enough to overpower her arousal when she sees Felix’s eyes widen. Still, he grabs her hand and helps her step out of the pool of fabric on the floor.

Ingrid runs a hand along a spider-web shaped scar scorched into her back. Edelgard knows the one - it starts in the small of her back and snakes all through her skin, gnarled and twisting across something that was once pure. 

The worst one is on her chest. She fights past her fear to reach behind, undo her bra, and let it fall to the ground. She resists the urge to cover herself, standing in her chambers with nothing but a pair of panties shielding her from three pairs of eyes. 

She can’t meet a single one of those eyes.

“You’re gorgeous,” Sylvain breathes. Her gaze lifts up, then lingers on his hand, stilled over the tent in his pants where he was obviously palming himself just moments before. “Come here?”

Slowly, Edelgard does. Sylvain’s hands are much larger than Ingrid or Felix’s, but he touches her like she’s made of porcelain as he tucks one of her loose bangs behind her cheek. 

“It’s true,” Ingrid adds from behind her. “You’re beautiful, El.”

She shivers at the nickname. Sylvain’s free hand comes to rest against her chest, tracing along the mangled skin over her heart. “Please don’t let me be the only one naked for much longer,” Edelgard says, shuddering as Sylvain’s lips come to kiss the center of her scar. He trails his mouth along its edge, leaving it behind to flick his tongue against her nipple. She moans as he flicks it again, her hips twitching forward involuntarily. She nearly misses the sound of rustling clothes as Ingrid and Felix quickly disrobe behind her, lost to the blood rushing in her ears.

Then a pair of hands are peeling off her gloves, one at a time. Her hands are scarred too, but Ingrid stops at her side and threads their fingers together like she’s something precious. Felix crawls on the bed next to Sylvain and kisses his jaw, his own hand coming down to unfasten Sylvain’s pants and slip inside. Sylvain stutters momentarily, his teeth grazing Edelgard’s sensitive skin, but he regains his composure enough to switch to her other breast and flick his tongue over the nipple there. Edelgard threads her free hand into his hair, enraptured by the smile he presses against her skin as she cards her fingers through the strands. 

Ingrid trails her fingers along Edelgard’s hip, rubbing circles against her inner thigh. Edelgard lets out a shaky exhale, lost in the pure waves of sensation flooding her nerves. She moves her legs further apart, trying to get Ingrid to slip her fingers there instead. Under her panties, that’s all she’s asking.

“I have a better idea,” Ingrid says, a laugh in her voice, her hand leaving Edelgard’s body to stroke her knuckles along Sylvain’s cheek. The gentle gesture turns harsh as she prods at his cheek, prompting him to pull back with a groan. Felix takes the opportunity to muffle his groan with a kiss of his own. 

Ingrid sits on the bed and scoots back, never once letting go of Edelgard’s hand. She pulls Edelgard forward until they’re both sitting. After a little more maneuvering, Edelgard sits with her back pressed against Ingrid’s chest. Edelgard tilts her head to the side to press their lips together, which Ingrid responds with a pleasant hum. At the same time, Felix slips his hand out of Sylvain’s pants and clambers into his lap.

Ingrid finally lets go of Edelgard’s hand, only to trail feather-light touches down her chest and stomach. Edelgard lifts her hips up when Ingrid’s hands touch the edge of her panties. She thankfully gets the message, slipping them off her. She kicks them off the rest of the way and glances over to see Felix kissing Sylvain so deeply he can’t even moan, even as Felix pulls him out of his pants and takes him in his hand. 

The sight curls a hot warmth through her, lightning starting deep in her core and arcing through her body. She grabs Ingrid’s hand and pulls it to where she wants it. Once more, Ingrid gets the message. Her lips find Edelgard’s neck again as her hand strokes against her folds, her thumb coming to circle her clit until she sees stars.

Then one finger is siding inside her, and then another, and a thumb rubs furiously against her. In what feels like the space of a few breaths Edelgard is toppling over an edge she barely knew existed, her vision nearly whiting out from the intensity. Ingrid pulls her fingers out once Edelgard stops clenching around them, but touches her through the aftershocks, leaving her spent and panting.

And that, in essence, is how the rest of Edelgard’s night goes: exploring the three bodies around her and seeing fireworks bloom behind her eyelids, over and over and over again. 

She learns what was in the black box: a _strapon_ , according to Sylvain, who begs Edelgard to use it on him. She relents, even though she isn’t sure what she’s doing. The way he nearly cries from sheer pleasure when she does, his ass in the air and face buried in one of her pillows, makes the entire ordeal worth it.

She goes boneless more than once from the sheer number of things Felix is able to do to her with his tongue.

For one night, the weight of her burdens stay far outside her chambers, buffeted away by the warmth and pleasure and safety she finds here.

* * *

Edelgard wakes up the next morning to a loud, brisk couple of knocks sounding against her door. She rolls over and tries to bury her face in her pillow, only to instead connect with the broad plain of Sylvain’s naked back.

A blush bursts over her face as her mind catches up to where she is. Naked. In bed. With not just Sylvain, but Felix and Ingrid, too. She cranes her neck to see Sylvain, fast asleep, his arm pulling Ingrid against him. Behind Edelgard is Felix, his back pressed to her own, hot skin against her bare scars.

Yet he does not flinch. Not a single one of them ever showed a hint of disgust.

Instead, they called her beautiful. They kissed her scars.

They made her feel loved.

She’s so glad her bed is unnecessarily massive for one person - a quality that makes it a comfortable fit for four.

The knock sounds again. Felix stirs behind her, stretching with a cute yawn like a cat waking up from an afternoon nap in the sun. It makes her heart melt.

Once more, the knock sounds. Hubert’s voice accompanies it. “Lady Edelgard?”

“Later, Hubert,” she calls out. 

“My apologies, but these documents need to be signed immediately. As much as I’d prefer to have you sign them after breakfast, I’m afraid they cannot wait.”

Edelgard groans. She moves to get up, but Felix moves before her. “I’ll get the damn things,” he says. 

“Wait, Felix, I-”

“Too late. I’m already up.”

Edelgard buries her face in her hands. Hubert is going to know they slept together and then she’ll die of mortification. Yet she also knows there’s no way around this - even if she were to hide their clothes and get dressed, there’s no way she can hide three entire bodies from Hubert’s too-observant gaze. She might as well accept the inevitable mortification now. 

He flings the blankets off himself as he gets to his feet. Edelgard sits up, watching him as he searches the room for his clothing. He’s covered in scars - they all are, but none quite as ghastly as the marks of sin that curl across her. 

His muscles flex as he moves. She drinks in the sight with another burst of heat. He stretches down to the ground with a dancer’s grace as he searches for his abandoned clothes. She didn’t realize how scattered their belongings became through the night, laying messily across the floor of her chamber. He gives up his search when yet _another_ knock sounds, electing instead to pull on Ingrid’s pants from the night before and Sylvain’s shirt. The pants are too tight and the shirt too loose, slipping off his shoulder and exposing the planes of his chest as he gives up buttoning the top half of it.

Edelgard pulls the blankets up to her neck, careful to pull it higher up the still-sleeping Sylvain and Ingrid as well, covering their bare bodies from Hubert’s view.

Felix opens the door. “What do you want.” 

Hubert looks at Felix as if he isn’t surprised at all to see him. Edelgard could die on the spot, but she forces herself to power through her own mortification and watch the rest of the exchange.

“Could you have Her Majesty sign these?” Hubert asks, handing him a folder stuffed to the brim with documents.

“Right now?” Felix asks.

“Yes. We need her approval to send additional provisions to our troops on the Faerghus frontlines. It seems that King Dimitri has sent troops from the northernmost noble houses to aid the church’s soldiers. Our troops will need all the strength we can give them to destroy their enemies.”

Felix’s back is to her, but she can see the way he tenses. He snatches the document from Hubert and slams the door in his face. Edelgard winces, but she also knows exactly what Hubert is doing. He started testing Ingrid’s loyalty long before she ever swore herself to Edelgard’s side, but he’s yet to do the same to Felix and Sylvain.

How he knew they were all here, she doesn’t want to know. 

Felix doesn’t snatch up a quill and inkstone, but instead pours out a little paint from the part of her chambers she’s dedicated to her art and dips a brush in the black. He marches over to Edelgard and hands her the document and brush both. “Sign it so he’ll leave us alone,” he bites out.

Sylvain stirs, which makes Ingrid stir in response. The two slowly wake up; Sylvain sits up and stretches, an arm coming to rest around Edelgard’s shoulder as he yawns. “Morning, El,” he says brightly. Edelgard suppresses a shiver as Felix sits on the edge of the bed, waiting for her to sign.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” Felix grouses. “She’s busy.”

“Someone’s in a bad mood,” Sylvain says. “Bet I know what could cheer you up.”

“I’d much rather eat first,” Ingrid says. “I’m starving.”

But Felix clenches his jaw shut and turns his expectant gaze on Edelgard. She skims over the documents, initialing and signing where necessary. Sylvain reads over her shoulder as she does, his fingers tracing aimless patterns against her bare shoulder.

Those patterns die a sudden death once he realizes _what_ it is she’s signing. 

Wordlessly, she hands it back to Felix. “You’ll want to cover up,” Felix says to them as Edelgard tugs the blanket up to cover her chest. Ingrid does the same, but Sylvain doesn’t move as Felix opens the door, shoves the papers in Hubert’s hands, and slams the door again. He locks it for good measure before going over and depositing himself on the end of the bed with a huff.

“...Faerghus troops, huh,” Sylvain says. Even Ingrid looks solemn at his side.

“This is the choice we’ve made,” she says softly. “They’re our enemies. It can’t be helped.”

Edelgard wishes she could say something to comfort them all, but any words she could think of just feel empty.

* * *

They do not flaunt their relationship in public, saving it instead for closed doors and the cover of night. They do not all come to Edelgard’s chambers every night, but as the days wear on, Edelgard finds herself sleeping alone less and less often.

There comes a day, under the oppressive Adrestrian summer sun, that Ingrid takes a dangerous chance. Edelgard has been bored out of her mind all day, sitting in an empty throne room and signing an endless amount of paperwork. Ingrid stands at her side to keep her company, but Hubert is off with Ferdinand consoling the increasingly-frustrated Imperial lords. It’s so difficult to maintain a war effort when all your efforts feel hopeless.

That’s when Ingrid stands in front of her and kisses her like she’s the reason Ingrid lives.

Edelgard is in her full regalia here, in the armored red dress and ornate headpiece that has come to define her as emperor. It’s a shame that she can’t feel Ingrid’s warmth, even as two hands pull her to her feet and circle her waist.

She lets Ingrid take the lead, grateful to not have to command another for once. Her crown grows so heavy these days. In a better world, someone else could have taken it from her. 

Those thoughts leave as Ingrid leans down to kiss along her jaw, leaving bursts of heat in Edelgard’s insides along her path.

“Sit down, my liege,” Ingrid whispers. “There’s something I wish to do for you, if you’ll allow me.”

Ingrid’s hands move from her waist, trailing up her back, her fingers blazing fire against the open part of Edelgard’s dress. She’s never been happier that she decided against wearing her cape inside the throne room than now. Those hands find her shoulders and gently push her back into her seat; Edelgard allows her to do so. 

Then Ingrid is kneeling in front of Edelgard, her hands on her knees. “Is this okay?” Ingrid asks. Her hand rubs a reassuring circle into Edelgard’s knee, just above where her boot ends. There is armor there, too. Edelgard wishes there wasn’t.

But doesn’t Ingrid wish the same?

“It’s wonderful,” Edelgard says softly. Her gaze goes to the door. Any one of her advisors could walk in here at any time. “But…”

Ingrid chuckles, her eyes bright with mirth. “You don’t need to worry. I made sure the door was locked when I finished my last rounds.”

Normally those kinds of details are left to Hubert - he patrols just as often as Ingrid does.

But she stops thinking of Hubert all at once when she feels Ingrid slipping Edelgard’s boots off, taking each shoe off with great care. One would think she was handling precious gold, not bloodstained leather. Next comes the armor strapped to her legs, carefully unbuckled and set in a neat pile off to the side.

Then Ingrid kisses her way up Edelgard’s thigh, her head disappearing under the skirt of her dress. Electricity races through her body with each press of her mouth, despite the fabric of Edelgard’s tights that keep Ingrid from truly kissing her skin. They’ve done this many times before, but the danger of coming undone in the throne room sets Edelgard on an edge she didn’t know she wanted to be on. 

“Just a moment, Ingrid,” Edelgard says. She gets to her feet momentarily, her hands slipping underneath the hem of her dress. Ingrid’s own hands stop her own.

“Allow me,” she says. Then a pair of warm hands are on her waist, pulling her tights and underwear down all at once. Her hands feel like pure fire, setting Edelgard alight in the best possible way. Her fingers trail along raised skin, moving so reverently that Edelgard can scarcely feel self-conscious about the endless scars that cross over her legs. She’s seen far worse at this point. Still, she touches Edelgard like she’s something to cherish. 

Ingrid gently pushes Edelgard back to a sitting position and resumes her previous work. She leaves open-mouthed kisses up the sensitive flesh of Edelgard’s inner thighs. Something within her pulses and she lets her legs fall open a little wider.

Then a pair of lips and a hot tongue press against her most sensitive part, and Edelgard thinks that she sees the heavens themselves. 

* * *

Right as the war reaches an awful deadlock, the Professor returns. Edelgard is close to tears as she leads the Professor by the hand to where she’s gathered the entirety of the Black Eagle Strike Force.

For the first time in years, her closest comrades express their hope.

Ingrid can’t deny that she’s happy as well. The Professor was dear to her, too - one of the first people in her life who truly believed in her ability to forge her own destiny. She was the one who introduced her to Dorothea, inviting them both to eat with her during one of her first weeks at the academy. 

She was the one that bound them all to Edelgard’s side five years ago, changing their destinies the moment she swore to fight against everything Fódlan stood for.

And yet, for all their lifted spirits, no one is more elated than Edelgard. It took hours for her to laugh freely around herself, Sylvain, and Felix the night of the ball - and that was only after four years of spending endless amounts of time working together for the same goal. 

Yet within minutes of the Professor’s arrival, Edelgard laughs as if she’s never understood what it meant to feel sorrow.

She catches Sylvain’s worried eyes amongst the festivities, knowing that he shares the same hesitance.

Now that the Professor is back, what will happen to them? 

Ingrid receives her answer the following night, as she helps Sylvain and Felix haul Felix’s old mattress into Sylvain’s old room. It’s their first night back in Garreg Mach. Their excuse is simple: Felix’s room has been taken over by termites, and it isn’t safe for him to stay there. He’ll stay in Sylvain’s until conditions improve.

Really, it’s because there is no way more than two people, at most, can fit on these small academy beds. 

Felix keeps looking at Dimitri’s old room. The blue carpet is still there, but all else that remains are dusty shelves and an empty bed frame. There’s no sign that their old friend once lived there, and yet Felix can’t tear his gaze away.

Ingrid looks around, checking to make sure the hallway is clear, before dropping her part of the mattress and crossing to the other side to take Felix’s face in her hands and kiss him. He kisses back automatically, too used to her lips to have to think about what to do, tilting his head and nibbling at her bottom lip in the way he knows makes her knees weak. 

“I get setting the mood, but can it wait until after we’re done moving this?” Sylvain asks. Ingrid pulls away from Felix and returns to Sylvain’s side to finish helping him carry it in.

It’s a strange fit, what with the additional bedframe, but they make it work. They change into their nightclothes quietly and settle down together. It speaks to how exhausting the day was if Sylvain isn’t up to fooling around.

They freeze when there’s a knock upon the door. They exchange a panicked look - save for Dorothea and Hubert (and of course, Edelgard), no one knows about their relationship. Sylvain raises a finger to his lips as he pitches his voice towards the door. “Yeah?”

“Sylvain?” Edelgard answers. “Can I come in?”

Their mutual panic turns to shock. “Y-yeah,” he says. Edelgard does, careful to close the door behind her. She’s in her Emperor regalia, but the bundle of clothes in her hands is one that Ingrid has come to recognize: her nightclothes.

“Oh good,” Edelgard says. “You moved a second bed in here. I was going to suggest you do that for one of our rooms.”

She starts stripping. Gone is the shyness Ingrid remembers from their first night together. They’ve all kissed Edelgard’s scars enough for her to know that she doesn’t need to be ashamed of them any longer. The story as to how she got them has yet to follow, but Ingrid hopes she’ll share it soon. 

Edelgard notices them watching and raises an eyebrow. “Is something the matter?”

Leave it to Felix to look at the concept of tact and destroy it. “We thought you were done with us.” As much as Ingrid wants to scold him for speaking on all their behalfs, he’s also right. 

“Why would I do that?”

“Because the Professor’s back,” Felix states, the most obvious thing in all of Fódlan.

“I- what?” Edelgard stammers. There’s just enough moonlight to illuminate the blush on her face. “It isn’t like that. Now scoot over Felix, I’d like to fit in there as well.”

She gets in without any further protest, slinging her arm over Felix’s waist and leaving her fingers to brush against Ingrid’s hip. Ingrid swallows her own protests.

Edelgard says there’s nothing between her and the Professor. And there isn’t.

But she wonders if Edelgard would still say that if they weren’t all aware of the intimate looks that pass between the Professor and Dorothea, even on the night of their reunion.

* * *

They would never admit it out loud, but Ingrid knows one thing to be true. For all she cares for Sylvain, Felix, and now Edelgard, she knows that her life would be radically different if Glenn had survived. 

Glenn was her first love, the kind that still aches in her chest on days when she combs her hands through Felix’s hair and wonders if Glenn’s would have felt the same if he had been allowed to grow older. 

She would have remained by his side in a world where he lived. That much, she knows.

She knows that Felix feels the same about Dimitri, despite all his posturing about his lost humanity. He’s never stopped chasing after the ghost that left Dimitri’s body the day of the Tragedy. 

Likewise, Edelgard pines for the Professor, one who has her heart set on someone else.

Sylvain is the only one who does not have a love lost to hold onto. It’s only because Sylvain does not believe he knows how to love.

He’s wrong, but he’d never listen to her.

* * *

The tides of war turn.

The man Dimitri has become is both completely influenced by Edelgard, and yet has hardly anything to do with her at all. She’s a scapegoat, something to pin whatever horrors he’s endured onto. If he were to write the history books, she would be his greatest villain.

But the battle has not fallen in his favor. Not as his wounded body crumples at her feet as he spits out his last curses. The rain pours on them both, washing away the blood that seeps from their wounds.

He can no longer lift his lance, not with the gashes that have rendered his arms useless. He cannot stand. All he can do is spit vitriol at her. 

In the end, he dies as he lived the final years of his life: tormented by delusion.

Felix appears moments after the last breath leaves Dimitri’s body, as if summoned by his spirit departing the land. He looks just as wild as Dimitri did, pushing himself towards Edelgard despite the gaps in his leather armor that weep blood. His hands are stained red, still unwashed from the rain. 

It was Felix who wounded Dimitri enough for Edelgard to deal the final blow. It is Felix who stands just a few feet behind her as she ended his old king’s life.

He lifts his hands to display them to her, his fingers slightly curled to shield his display from the pouring rain. “Do you see this?” he hisses. At Edelgard’s nod, his hands cup her cheeks, the touch harsher than any blade he could ever draw on her. “It was for you.”

He kisses her like there’s nothing left to lose.

Dimitri’s blood washes away. Felix’s words never will.

Rivers of red.

* * *

With the Immaculate One’s death, they win the war. There is still work to be done, still vermin to remove from the shadows, but the war that has plagued the people can finally end. 

It feels so strange, to settle into something close to peace. 

They have the largest celebration that night, bigger than even the ball held there five years prior. Bigger than the ball Edelgard held within Enbarr. 

Soldiers cart out endless bottles of wine from deep within the cellars of Garreg Mach; merchants bring fine fruits and meats from all across the new Adrestrian Empire; and the greatest musicians find play their most exquisite pieces for their new leaders.

Yet for all the festivities, for all the way Dorothea descends the stage to dance with the Professor as if she hasn’t spent the last half a decade mourning every death she’s ever caused, Edelgard can’t bring herself to partake.

She disappears out of the main hall, her feet taking her back to her old bedroom from the Academy days. She hasn’t slept here in so long, not since she took over what was once Rhea’s chambers for her own. Not since she’s split the rest of her nights between there and Sylvain’s room.

She sits down on her bed, on the threadbare red blanket from years before that some soldier must have unthinkingly washed when on laundry duty. Hubert was the one who insisted she take Rhea’s chambers. _A fitting room for an Emperor, Your Majesty,_ he had said. _And an easier location to defend than your old chambers._

For all the nights she spent there, very few she spent alone. 

Still, she smooths out a crease in this old blanket and misses this room. Before long, her other enemies will be eradicated. Those Who Slither In the Dark will never again hide in the shadows, and at long last, Edelgard can take off her crown and live the life she’s always dreamed of.

A knock sounds at her closed door.

“Can it wait, Hubert?” she asks with a tired sigh. 

Yet it isn’t Hubert’s voice who answers her, but Sylvain’s. “Saw you sneaking off alone, El. We thought you might want some company.”

She doesn’t fight her smile. “You can come in.” The door swings open, and Sylvain, Ingrid, and Felix all filter in. 

“It didn’t seem right for you to be alone now. Not when the war is finally over,” Ingrid says softly. “Isn’t that right?”

“The war isn’t over yet. The church may be gone, but there’s still those slitherers, right?” Sylvain asks.

Before the two of them can begin to squabble, as they often do, Felix speaks up. His eyes bore into Edelgard. “The boar called you El,” he says. “I heard it. How did he know that name?”

Edelgard pauses. In all his frenzied speech, that had been lost on her. There are so few people who have called her that name. Her family, the Professor, and the three that watch her with heavy gazes now.

She furrows her brow. That list seems incomplete. There… there was one more. The Faerghus noble boy, the one she taught to dance during her exile. The boy with the blue eyes, and…

Edelgard gets up and rummages around the room. She finds the dagger hidden deep within a drawer, the same place that she’s left it since returning to Garreg Mach. For all the things that have radically changed in Edelgard’s life, this one keepsake remains untouched by the sands of time.

Ingrid comes up behind her, so Edelgard hands the dagger, sheath and all, to her to examine. It’s a simple design, inlaid with gold and a navy blue handle. There’s nothing much to decorate it, to differentiate it from any number of other daggers within what used to be the Kingdom. 

Sylvain stands behind Ingrid to examine it. “I’m not really seeing the connection. What does a Kingdom dagger have to do with Dimitri?”

“A Faerghus noble boy gave that to me when I was a girl.”

Sylvain studies it before recognition sparks lightning in his eyes. He takes a staggering step backward before sinking down onto Edelgard’s bed. He hangs his head in his hands and laugh. Hysterical, raucous, broken in a way that she’s never heard come from him before.

Edelgard glances at Felix and Ingrid; they both look shocked, and it’s that reaction that sends a spike of fear deep into her heart. “Sylvain? Are you… alright?”

He laughs for far too long.

Eventually his laughter tapers off into a cough, then a wheeze as he struggles to regain his composure. “I’m sorry, it’s just - oh, goddess, this is _rich.”_

“I don’t understand,” Ingrid says. “Sylvain, what’s going on?”

He looks up at them with an empty grin. “Do you guys remember back when we were kids? I wanna say there was an entire year where Dimitri would hang out with someone who wasn’t us. Felix, didn’t you cry for an hour straight because you thought Dimitri abandoned you?” Felix stiffens, but he doesn’t deny it. “And Ingrid, weren’t you furious that Dimitri never introduced us to this girl he wouldn’t stop talking about whenever we did get together?”

Ingrid nods slowly, just as unsure as Edelgard. What point is Sylvain trying to make?

“And man, I made fun of him for _years_ once I found out what he did when she left. What kind of twelve-year-old gives someone a _dagger_ as a parting gift? At least give her a daisy or something.”

Edelgard feels the floor hollow out beneath her. She lurches over to the bed and sits down next to Sylvain. Ingrid stares at the dagger still in her hands like it’s the decapitated head of the man who would have been her king. Felix scrubs at his face furiously.

“He said… I had to cut a path to the future I wished for, no matter what,” Edelgard says.

“Sounds like what Dimitri would have said,” Felix says, his voice muffled by his hands. The name is not lost on her - not the boar, but Dimitri. The boy Felix still loves, even with his blood staining armor Edelgard will make certain he never has to don again.

Nothing more than another casualty of this war, one warped by the awful machinations of those same people who must still be brought to justice.

It’s only months later, at the grave they make for him within the forests bordering Fhirdiad, that she learns the identity of his stepmother. A woman Edelgard never bothered to give much thought to after hearing the news of her death.

The same woman who left her as a child. 

Her mother.

She mourned Dimitri, the king who never could be, the day of his death. 

But on that day, she mourns her last sibling. 

* * *

Edelgard doesn’t speak it aloud, but she often wonders, on the nights when the bed within the Imperial Palace is warmed by not one body, but four, if this is the happiest ending she could have given the ones who share her heat.

She’s never sure of the answer. Not with the way Ingrid often looks to the north, not with the jokes Sylvain still makes at his own expense, and not with the way Felix is always one bad night away from walking out of her life and never returning.

Still, they make do with what they have left.


End file.
